


Found Footage

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Praying That It'll Be You [31]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Creepy Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells, M/M, Past Hartley Rathaway/Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells, Past Rape/Non-con, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27759568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: “Well,” he says, in a tone that suggests he’s bottling his surprise for when it would be most useful, “I got fed up with the fact that none of you seem to have touched my doppelganger’s things since his death, so I went through them…”“And he has videos?” Hartley concludes. In a far more bitter tone than he should probably use, he adds, “He always did like to watch.”
Relationships: Barry Allen/Hartley Rathaway
Series: Praying That It'll Be You [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562548
Comments: 11
Kudos: 35





	Found Footage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueelvewithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueelvewithwings/gifts).



> For blueelvewithwings, who asked (oh so long ago) whether the team (or Hartley) would ever find EoWells' security-camera recordings. This is not a happy fic. Hartley still has no idea how to cope with his trauma without self-blame, so he does a lot of that - and Barry does the same, to a lesser extent.

“No, we’re not doing that.”

Hartley pauses mid-step. Barry sounds genuinely irritated, like someone has pushed him too far. He doesn’t have to wait long to hear the perpetrator:

“Why not? You want to keep this from him when he was the one whose privacy was violated? Don’t you think he deserves to know?”

That’s not good. He has no idea whose privacy Harry violated, but him bringing it to Barry first is vaguely disturbing. Barry might be the team leader, but he doesn’t have a right to know everything that goes on with their teammates.

“No, because you showed me the ones I was in and I felt sick!” Barry is clearly making an effort to keep his voice down. “I didn’t need any more reason to hate Thawne, and he doesn’t either. This will do more harm than good, and that’s all I can say.”

Oh. They’re talking about him. He can only imagine how Thawne violated his privacy this time…perhaps the cameras in the Pipeline cells? Or…no. No, he can’t have.

“What will do more harm than good?” he demands, walking into the room. The two of them are in, of all places, his lab—he assumes Harry came looking for him and Barry found him first. “And Barry, I can make that decision myself, or isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

Harry’s eyebrows do a surprised little twitchy thing that faux-Wells’ never did. The differences in body language are more reassuring than Hartley would ever tell Harry (although it shouldn’t matter after so long). “Well,” he says, in a tone that suggests he’s bottling his surprise for when it would be most useful, “I got fed up with the fact that none of you seem to have touched my doppelganger’s things since his death, so I went through them…”

“And he has videos?” Hartley concludes. In a far more bitter tone than he should probably use, he adds, “He always did like to watch.”

“Yeah…” Harry pulls out faux-Wells’ laptop. “About that.”

Hartley knows what he’s about to see, or thinks he does, anyway. He’s not prepared for the sickening reality of Harry opening a file that contains dozens of video entries. 

“This is your file.” Harry scrolls down. “I only watched one the very beginnings of a couple, but it’s easy enough to tell what this is.” He looks sickened as well. Hartley is torn between being grateful for that and lashing out.

Barry lays a hand on his arm. “You don’t need to watch these, you can just delete them and…”

Hartley shakes his head. “I need to see.” Reluctantly, he clicks open the first video and settles in to watch.

He remembers the night that unfolds on the recording. He’d worked at STAR Labs for several months before he finally found the courage to kiss faux-Wells, and everything moved quickly after that. On the video, it’s clearly faux-Wells in charge of the encounter—he moves them around, positions Hartley so that he’s most visible to the camera. It's hard to reconcile the detached, videotaped reality with his memory of that night. He can still vividly recall the racing, heart-in-his-throat feeling of having made the first move after months of wanting.

About halfway through the recording, a strange, sick little part of his brain wonders how many times faux-Wells touched himself to this particular video. To his distress, buried under the disgust at being unknowingly recorded and the crawling feeling of remembering the encounter, there’s a twinge of arousal at that thought. He blames this for the rushed, babbled, “Look at that. See, Barry, I told you, I threw myself at him. No wonder he thought I was only good for sex, I certainly didn’t act like he needed to bother with anything else.”

Barry makes a soft, wounded sound. “That’s what you see?”

“How could I not?” Hartley clicks out of the video despite a sick desire to watch it all the way through. Instead, he scrolls through the rest of the video logs. The words pour out of him frantically. If he says enough, Barry might finally understand how much he brought this on himself. “That one, I let him bend me over the desk, spank me with a ruler, and fuck me while there were still people working in the adjacent room. That one, he got me drunk at a STAR Labs party. I remember kissing in the elevator. No clue what happened after that. Oh, that one I was under his desk blowing him while he talked to Ronnie. So yeah, of course all I see is a desperate slut. How can you not?”

Barry eases the laptop away from him, clicks open a different file, and opens a new video, dated well after the particle accelerator explosion. “Because of this.”

This video shows Barry, tousle-haired and pink-cheeked, apparently just back from a successful fight. Faux-Wells greets him by touching his hand and continues to touch him throughout, little lingering brushes that make Barry’s face soften in an all-too-recognizable way. Hartley's stomach turns. He remembers being touched like that—how giddy it made him to be noticed, how it fed his naïve crush until he was willing to do anything to keep faux-Wells’ attention. “Why did he keep this?”

“Because this is as far as he got with me.” Barry pauses the video on a shot of his own adoring face. Were it not for the timely interruption of a bright-eyed Cisco, who’s just visible at the edge of the screen, Hartley is sure Barry would have made the same mistake he did. “Unless you count the footage from my bedroom, which he clearly watched often.” 

Hartley shudders. “You should never have had to go through that.” Slowly, preparing for a rebuke, he murmurs, “Neither of us should?”

“No,” Harry interjects. Hartley whips around to face him. He’s been so quiet that Hartley, at least, forgot he was there. Now he sees the look of utter disgust on Harry’s face. Of course he’s revolted—how could he not be after watching Hartley throw himself at a man wearing Harry’s face? He braces for a swift and biting rebuke. Instead, Harry says, “You were both _children._ He was, what, twice your age when that began?” 

The look in his eyes isn’t judgment, and it’s not quite pity. Rather, it’s fury. That’s the only reason Hartley finds the nerve to admit, “I was seventeen when we first met. Legal, in Central City. And he didn’t do anything until I was eighteen.”

Harry scoffs. “Numbers, just numbers. You were an inexperienced kid who revered him. He should have mentored you, not slept with you. Legal or not, what he did to you—to both of you—was unethical on multiple levels. And, both of you: it was _not your fault.”_

To Hartley’s astonishment, it’s Barry who looks at the screen and murmurs, “It doesn’t look that way. It looks like…” He heaves a sigh that seems to come from the deepest parts of him. “Reckless naivete.” 

Hartley pulls him close and squeezes him tight. His poor sweet boy, having to look again at the man who killed his mother—not only that, but see him watching with lustful eyes. Barry must feel…furious, Hartley realizes. The way Hartley felt not all that long ago, but with more reason for it. “It wasn’t your fault,” he murmurs.

Barry pulls back and peers at him with wide, hurt eyes. Fleetingly, Hartley wishes they were still psychically connected, so that he could know why Barry looks so wounded by comfort. Then he hears the quivering note of disbelief in Barry’s voice. He doesn’t sound as though he thinks Hartley is lying; he sounds more like he can’t believe Hartley would extend compassion to him and keep none for himself. “Then it wasn’t yours.”

That’s the hardest part to accept. Hartley’s feelings are still so tangled…but he has to try. He can’t blame himself and tell Barry not to do the same, not when what happened to them was so similar. He’ll end up making Barry think self-blame is all right. 

“I want that laptop gone,” he murmurs without looking at Harry. “Take it apart for pieces if you want, but…destroy the memory. The last thing either of us needs is more reminders.”

Harry nods and scoops up the laptop. Hartley isn’t much in the mood to laugh, but Harry pulling out a screwdriver and muttering “I have plans for you” makes him smile anyway. It’s sweet to know Harry is putting on a show for them—not out of selfishness, but out of care. That’s something Hartley would never have believed faux-Wells capable of. 

“Do you wanna go home?” Barry checks.

Slowly, Hartley nods. He can’t shake the feeling that leaving so early is unacceptable, but Barry is offering. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

The next second, they’re at home, snuggled on the sofa. It’s the safest Hartley has felt since seeing that laptop. Slowly, he burrows into Barry’s chest and lets himself have this, just a little bit longer.


End file.
